The present invention relates generally to track transport systems, and more particularly to floor track systems such as used in sanitary fluid treatment chambers for transporting thereinto food stuffs on wheeled hand trucks, or the like.
In processing cooked meat products, such as smoked meat and sausage, it is a conventional practice to roll racks or hand trucks loaded with cooked meat into a cooling chamber and circulate therethrough chilled air to cool the meat. This method of chilling the cooked meat has the major drawback of evaporating meat juices and thus causing excessive dehydration and shrinkage of the product. This dehydration, especially in meat products such as sausage or frankfurters results in difficulty in removing the cellulose casing. Another disadvantage of air chilling is that the rate of heat transfer from the meat to the air is relatively slow.
More recent approaches to chilling cooked meat products employ fluid treatment chambers with a system for showering the meat products with a chilled brine solution to quickly transfer the heat from the meat to the solution where it can be recovered, recooled and then recirculated. Because of the volume of water needed as part of the brine solution to cool the meat products is significant, it becomes economically advantageous to recover the brine solution from the chamber and recirculate it.
The meat products processed in this manner are generally for human consumption and must therefore be processed in a sanitary environment as required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is also desirable to chill large quantities of meat products at one time, and be able to quickly move such large quantities about the processing plant as desired. The method of transporting cooked meat into and out of the fluid treatment chamber must maintain the sanitary condition of the chamber as well as the recovered brine solution.
One transport system used with a certain degree of success in cooling chambers is the overhead rail or trolley onto which product carriers, such as racks or trees, are suspended and automatically moved or manually pushed and pulled by a gaff or similar device. These overhead rail transport systems suffer the disadvantage of fixing the route of transfer. In other words, the meat products can only be moved to places where an overhead rail or trolley has been previously installed. Another disadvantage of the overhead trolley system, when used in recirculating brine solution environments, is that the solution which comes into contact with the lubricating grease on the transport wheels becomes contaminated, and cannot thereafter be used unless sterilized. This disadvantage has been overcome by locating the brine shower system below the overhead track system, and by employing a false ceiling between the shower system and the track system with slots in the ceiling through which the depending arm of the meat carriers move when transported. This slot can be covered with rubber flaps which seal the slot, but yet allow movement of the depending arm.
These and other disadvantages of the overhead rail system have, by and large, been overcome by the use of wheeled dolly-like floor trucks which can be pushed to any desired destination, or stored at remote seldom-used locations. The mobility advantage gained by the wheeled floor trucks is, however, offset by the unsanitary nature of the wheels which invariably become contaminated with foreign substances picked up from the processing plant floor.
The use of wheeled hand trucks to carry meat products into a sanitary chilling chamber has therefore presented an impediment to the recovery and reuse of the cooling brine solution. This problem can be circumvented by retreating to the air chilled chamber, but only at the expense of product dehydration and longer cooling cycles. It would therefore be advantageous to provide a chilling system which uses fluid as a quick cooling agent, along with wheeled hand trucks for quick and versatile meat products transportation, and also where the contamination attendant with the use of wheels is eliminated as a factor so that the cooling fluid maintains its sanitary nature and thus can be reused without incurring the expense of reprocessing it to a sanitary condition.
The primary object of the invention therefore is to provide a floor transport system which allows dolly-like floor trucks to be used in a fluid treatment center in a manner which prevents the wheels or other support structure on the dolly from contaminating the treatment fluid.
Another objective of this invention is to provide a floor transport track system where the wheels of the trucks used to support the product to be treated can be segregated from the recirculated treatment solution such that any objectionable contaminant on the wheels will not be carried into the treatment solution and prevent the reuse thereof.
Other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the various embodiments when considered in connection with the attached drawings.